View Laura Heins' transmission:

One Way (2:50): notes
> Quicktime, 2.3 mb (lower quality)
> Quicktime, 9.3 mb (high quality)

Berlin During the War (5:27): notes
> Quicktime, 4.6 mb (lower quality)
> Quicktime, 18.3 mb (high quality)

Saturday at the synagogue (5:42): notes
> Quicktime, 4.0 mb (lower quality)
> Quicktime, 15.5 mb (high quality)

Fotophobia (6:51): notes
> Quicktime, 2.4 mb (lower quality)
> Quicktime, 8.6 mb (high quality)

"In the past year, the Mobile Media camera has traveled to China and to the Ukraine, both still relatively unfamiliar landscapes for most Americans. Germany, on the other hand, does not seem so far away from the East Coast. This made my project more difficult in certain respects. Berlin, like New York, has been photographed to death (though the ubiquitous building cranes in Berlin always bring new reincarnations of the city's past self). Due to the high concentration of artists and film production companies there, residents continually have the experience of walking through film sets or photo shoots. Film, of course, has a long history there. The first public showing of a film took place in Berlin, shortly before the Lumiere brothers screening in Paris. Cinematic visions of the city as such were in large part developed in Berlin: the Expressionist city in Metropolis, the modernist city in Berlin, Sinphonie einer Grosstadt, or the neo-realist city in Germania, Anno Zero, for example. On the one hand, this history and the photogenic qualities of the city make it very appealing, but on the other hand, there is the dilemma of how to offer an unexpected vision of Berlin with simple means. Most of the videos I made there were an experiment in finding forms to represent Berlin, and those experiments were at the same time a process of learning about the many possibilities offered by digital media. My videos are still unprofessional and rough, but this is in part what makes them different from standard documentaries and television reportages. I am trying to develop an impure, unharmonious style of documentation, which is thematically organized, but clearly subjective."

Laura Julia Heins

Laura Heins' notes on the films:

notes on One Way:

I attempted to create a sense of euphoric movement through the city in this short video. Rather than showing only monuments and recognizable city views, however, I was interested in the beauty of abstraction achieved by close-ups of buildings and streets. Since the camera cant always register focused detail while moving, the objects often form streams of color and line, with occasional beats of individually focused frames, creating a rhythm that could be cut particularly well with music. Originally I planned to make the entire video abstract, but I realized that I would then have to call the video Motion Sickness so, finally, the city and some of its geographical markers do come into focus.

notes on Berlin During The War:

Shortly after September 11, Chancellor Schroder assured President Bush of Germanys complete solidarity with the United States and signaled its willingness to follow Americas lead in any upcoming military interventions. Many Germans, while shocked by the terrorist attacks, regarded the flag-waving ceremonies on the other side of the Atlantic with skepticism. They were also apprehensive about the prospect of once again seeing German troops marching abroad. (The two voice-overs in the video announce that German soldiers will take part in the war in Afghanistan; the first is the voice of a radio reporter, and the second is the voice of Chancellor Schroder.) After the start of bombing in Afghanistan, there were protests almost every week here in Berlin and in many other German cities, and the slogans of the protest were typically characterized by anti-Americanism and categorical anti-militarism. I took footage at one of the demonstrations on October 13, 2001. While the images I chose reveal my sympathy with the protesters, I also used an aggressive sound montage as a counterpoint to the slogans, many of them admittedly simplistic, such as Fuck the war, love each other. (Other forms of protest, such as the caveman who scrawled on his stomach: Civilized world, you disgust me! were more unusual, however.) I was also interested in the ever-presence of camera eyes at such events. The actual protest appeared to fade behind the future moment of its reappearance on so many film strips and video tapes -- some used for private memories or art projects, some for media agencies, some for surveillance. In this interest, I faded the scenes of the demonstration to grayscale and left the televised images in color.

Translations of posters:
-- Whoever kills innocent civilians is a terrorist: George Bin Bush
--Baghdad, New York, Kabul, Berlin end the war logic!
-- Active resistance against Bush's New War
--50 years of humanitarian interventions by the USA: Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, Grenada, Haiti, Hiroshima, Panama, Libya, Iraq, Korea, East Timor, AFGHANISTAN
-- (Uncle Sam): I still have one eye left.
-- Violence is the last way out for incompetents.
-- Dis-Armament
-- Love each other, fuck the war
-- (Afghani protesters in parade): Let us starve in peace!
-- (on button): Stop the war.
text of music: Stay away from the unknown....Dont ask for trouble...Report any identified dangers.

notes on Saturday at the Synagogue:

A voice-over text provides commentary to this video. Again, the subject is a demonstration, one that allowed me to experiment more with form. The black holes in the video acknowledge gaps in knowledge and limits of vision, while the stills create the feeling of another time zone.

notes on Fotophobia:

The world's largest retailer enforces a ban on images, since pictures often go along with critical press. Journalists and opponents of globalization fault the company for its low wages and authoritarian treatment of its employees, as well as miserable conditions in the factories that supply its stores. As Wal-Mart has expanded into Europe, there has also been some resistance here to its particularly American company culture. Even in Berlins Wal-Mart Supercenter (located, ironically, on Karl-Marx Street), employees are forced to do the daily company cheer, in the manner of a high school football game or army drill corps.

Recently, I went to the Karl-Marx Strae with the intention of filming the sun rising behind the store, a simple shot I intended to include in a video with various views of the city. Soon, security guards arrived and tried to confiscate my tape. I refused to give it to them, since there was other material on the tape that I needed, but I offered to erase the footage I had just recorded. With the camera pointed to the ground, I recorded over the sunrise, but at the same time the microphone picked up the conversation between me, a friend who came along with me, and the two security guards.

German law prevents stores from opening on Sundays, so Wal-Mart generously allows its private property to be used for a Sunday morning flea market. It was then that I went without a tripod, and hidden amongst the crowd, I managed to sneak a few forbidden shots.

Yale Mobile Media Mix (YMMM) is an on-going series of projects sponsored by the Digital Media Center for the Arts (DMCA) enabling artists to produce and distribute artworks on the internet. As the bandwidth for multimedia continues to expand, new models of distribution are evolving that will change the way we transmit, receive and interact with media. The DMCA wants to support experiments that redefine what is possible, inspire new forms of expression and educational exchange, explore interactivity as well as create new audiences and new markets. Since part of the DMCA's mission is to generate collaboration between artists from many disciplines, projects that combine skills from the fields of art, architecture, art history, drama, film, and music are encouraged.